Like many of you I’ve been watching the Iraq and Najaf coverage with interest. It is challenging to try to read between the lines about what is happening. You have to sift through so many news reports to distill a semblance of what is actually going on, and you have to do a significant amount of research to achieve the most rudimentary amount of context. It seems like media coverage is impossible to obtain from a disinterested and contextual point of view. Anyway, whenever you see the Shiia marching with their portraits of Sadr you may have also noticed the presence of depictions of Imam Ali, the fourth Caliph of Islam, who the Shiia regard as the true successor of Muhammad. Ali was betrayed and killed much like another famous religious figure. See the image below for a visual comparison of popular depictions of Ali (left) and Jesus Christ (right).
